Classes: Warblade/Vedic – Honoria is trained as a user of the grue au soleil swordstyle, and she favors this aspect of her character over her other side. When she became exposed to the Well, the anima tempered her inner strength and natural grace by opening her up to the ways of the ancient Vedics. She doesn’t entirely understand this aspect of her nature, and tends to use it passively, applying her ki in ways to better defend herself, and making use of her newly found fast movement and spell resistance to take out potent mystical foes, when needed.

Much of Honoria’s equipment is contained within her quarters aboard the Shirley. Prior to this, she had been dragging it all around within a large, burlap sack.

Bio:

Quotes:

“Well, of course I said it, my dear Charlotte. What was I supposed to do, keep it inside? Honestly, now.”

“In the future, you will see that you speak to me with greater reverence. I am, after all, a lady of great refinement. Now, if you will excuse me, there is something vile on my boot, and I must go wipe it on something.”

“With this, my loyal handmaiden, and with these thousand ribbons of virtue, I will leave you hewn and rapt in awe.”

“I’m sorry, my dear man, I didn’t hear a word you were saying. I got to thinking about champagne, and how I would like to take a bath in it. Now, what’s this about mermaids?”

History:

Honoria was born the second daughter to Duke Henri de Danan Renaldi au Blanchard, the current patriarch of House Blanchard of the Dumerre dukedom of Moregnon.

Honoria was a difficult child. As is customary of young women of nobility, she was sent to be trained in the ways of a proper lady at the La Pucelle Convent several miles outside of Le Moregn. Honoria was very enthusiastic about becoming a lady of refinement, but in actuality was quite terrible at it. Her stubborn and self-absorbed nature coupled with her inability to focus on anything for more than a few minutes and her tendency towards reckless abandonment did not cause her to mesh well with the inhabitants of the convent. Although she did make a few friends among the other nobles’ daughters, she was ultimately deemed unfit to serve in a noble court, and sent home to her family. While Honoria is aware of this fact, she prefers not to pay it any mind, instead insisting that her behavior would make her a paragon of nobility regardless of how it appeared to others.

Her father, however, did not share this opinion. Wanting his daughter to remain honorable, he decided that she would have to enlist in military service if she would not conform to the behaviors attributed to a young duchess. However, military training was equally disastrous for Honoria. She was seen to have a wanton disregard for authority, a hopelessly irresponsible nature, and a genuine inability to work well with other soldiers she deemed to be below her station in life. It seemed the only time the girl did well was in combat training, where she exhibited a rare focus.

Although she was discharged in her first year of service, her superior officers related this to her father. As a last resort, Honoria was sent to the Trementeau Mountains, where she was made to train under the infamous swordsman, Renard Lefevre. Although Renard found the girl highly agitating, he also recognized the strength of her inner steel, and Honoria began to excel as his pupil.

By the age of 23, Honoria had become one of the star pupils of Lefevre. While she still possessed many personality flaws and eccentricities, the girl seemed to be genuinely tempered by her training. Her swordsmanship training allowed her to focus and in many ways, relate to others. Lefevre hoped that through closer adherence to the grue au soleil swordstyle, Honoria would perhaps learn the true nature of nobility and leadership, and would be able to apply the honing she received in battle to her day to day life, and perhaps even in the court of the Saint Queen.

However, before her training could be entirely complete, Honoria was called home due to a tragedy. Her older sister, Astoria, had fallen to atma saturation, and had become a Preta. Honoria was stricken with grief and anger.

Furthermore, Astoria’s loss signified peril for the Blanchard house. It seems that, in order to restore the waning financial status of the family, Astoria’s hand in marriage had been promised to Duke Salanas of Olmenna.

Salanas had hoped to establish some presence in Moregnon, in an attempt to expand his own financial empire and to perhaps gain an asset that would appeal to the Emperor. It had been known that Pilate had expressed interest in obtaining territory in Moregnon, and Salanas had hoped to gain the favor of the Emperor by obtaining some land in his name. Marrying Astoria provided the perfect opportunity, but with the eldest Blanchard daughter out of the picture, it seemed his ambitions would be quashed.

In hopes of preserving the effort, Honoria’s father offered the Duke his second daughter, claiming that she would now be the rightful heir with Astoria losing her humanity. Honoria was horrified.

On the night before her wedding (six months before the beginning of the campaign), Honoria drugged her attendants, and stole her family’s dowry. In addition to this, she took a large sum of heirloom jewelry from Salanas’ belongings, and fled into the forests surrounding Blanchard Manor.

Honoria spent the next six months wandering the Moregnon countryside somewhat aimlessly- dueling other swordsmen for money, and attempting to sell off her dowry and Salanas’ wedding gifts to the highest bidder. She does this hoping to throw anyone following her off her trail, and also to provide herself with the means to restore her family’s financial state and make her marriage to Salanas unnecessary. However, due to her unique personality quirks, attempting to sell the goods has proven difficult.

In the village of Cheudre, she met with the bard Charlotte Cabochon and the shaman Milo Shore. Having recently spent all her liquid assets on fine clothing and food, the flighty heiress found herself unable to pay for room and board, as the village was unable to accept a trinket from her collection of jewels as payment. She asked the two travelers to accompany her into the Olmennan encampment in Hepatica’s ruins, under the ruse that she would be attempting to gain military aid on behalf of her fiance to be put up and safely escorted home.

In reality, Honoria intended to con whatever lonely soldiers she happened upon into giving the young woman some money, and then bolting town after a night’s stay at the inn, but as these things go, fate intervened, and Honoria was immersed in the Well along with Charlotte and Milo.

Since then, Honoria has traveled with the others. She doesn’t exactly get along with them, although if asked, she considers Charlotte to be a near and dear friend. Her spirit guide is Cecilia, who is often at odds with the young swordswoman. Honoria herself admits that while she enjoys the benefit she receives from her spiritual companion, she often “tunes her out”, stating she finds her to be something of a nuisance.

Personality and Relationships:

The best word to describe Honoria is larger than life. The young swordswoman is dramatic to a fault, hopelessly self-absorbed, vain, self-aggrandizing, narcissistic, and fairly socially irresponsible. Primarily, she is motivated only by personal goals, although when something does manage to sink through her skull, she may react strongly to it out of self-righteousness.

Honoria is highly verbose, but not the best listener- in fact, she rarely listens to others. She tends to ramble on endlessly, stringing together any number of unrelated thoughts. She is also prone to becoming distracted, to the point that she would likely be diagnosed with Adult ADHD in a modern world.

Despite this, she is highly intelligent. She can recite, with great ease, the exploits of many famed nobles and members of the royal court, and has a passion for the tales of the older eras of the world. She is also a skilled craftswoman, and can work metals and gemstones with great skill, creating elaborate trinkets and ornate decorations for herself to wear.

Honoria has a tendency to put her foot in her mouth, and tends to say whatever is on her mind without thinking about it first. However, she can be diplomatic when necessary, which implies that she has insight into many of her inconsiderate behaviors, but chooses not to work on them out of laziness or just plain arrogance.

She is fond of the finer things in life, which is probably due to the fact that most of her formative years were spent being denied the common luxuries for a woman of her upbringing. Between her family’s financial woes and the fact that she spent much of her life away from the manor, she has never really been able to enjoy the commodities typically afforded to a woman of her breeding, and she strives to compensate for this fact at all times. She also tends to be a bit superficial, and revels in the normative roles assigned to young women in Moregnon.

Honoria’s greatest fears include becoming a Preta, being truly helpless, and (perhaps not surprisingly) becoming fat. This last fear doesn’t stop her from eating like a bear getting ready for winter, however- Honoria tends to overeat to the point of becoming sick, if permitted. Her favorite food is Shuran honeycakes, a rich and fatty delicacy that is known for its refined taste and for its high cost to produce outside of Gandharva.

Her relationship with others tends to be at arm’s length. She has a general inability to communicate honestly with others, and tends to hide herself behind grand lies and boasting because she feels highly insecure about personal failures in the past. Additionally, some of her behavior is overcompensation for feeling unloved and unwanted by her father.

While their history is brief due to her extended stays away from the manor, she had a close relationship with Astoria. She has a younger brother, Noel, with whom she had a rocky relationship.

Her friends include the daughter of the Duke of Demontres, Cerise de Danan Yvettes au Creneveau, and her bunkmate from her days under Lefevre, Cais Leroy.

She and her father are cold to each other. Her mother is deceased, dying of a plague that swept the Dumerre region when she was only eight (this same plague is the plague that took the lives of many of the fishermen of Dumerre, and is in part responsible for the failing financial state of the Blanchard family). She does, however, recognize a father figure in Lefevre.

Finally, she is very cold to her fiance, and finds herself with nothing but hatred for a man that would try and use her and her sister as a pawn in his political schemes.

Honoria is attracted to dangerous men, and men who are of a rugged appearance. Many of the men she finds attractive are reminiscent of Lefevre in character. Physically, she likes a man with scars and is fond of dark hair and a deep complexion.

Tactics:

In battle, Honoria becomes a very different sort of person. She becomes highly aware of what is going on around her, but she does retain some of her dramatic behaviors and her selfish nature.

She tends to evaluate the foes based on imminent threat, and then darts in. She adopts an aggressive stance and typically begins the battle by using a Tactical Strike to allow her allies to surround the foe she has selected. Then, she uses Leading the Attack and Dousing the Flames to help her allies to make a unified assault and to contain the threat in such a way that it cannot maneuver around the group without being picked apart.

She tends to ignore active soulmelds in exchange for subtle soulmelds that enhance her defense and combat prowess.